In Which Sophie and Howl Do Not Get Married (But Actually Do)
by PhantomPenguin
Summary: What with Howl being one of the Royal Wizards, and Sophie having performed a Very Useful Service to the crown, the wedding was set to be a lavish affair, held in the gardens of the palace itself, attended by at least half the Royal Court, and conducted by the royal bishop. So, naturally, neither Sophie nor Howl had gotten to have any say at all.


**Disclaimer: Howl's Moving Castle and all associated characters and media do not belong to me.**

Wow it's been AGES since I posted any sort of story! And, what do I do? I turn around and dive into a completely new fandom-granted, I've been a silent member of the HMC fandom for years and years. This actually started as an idle drabble for my Brit Lit class, and things...escalated...somewhat. As always, reviews and comments are encouraged!

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The sun was shining, birds were singing, and Sophie Hatter was NOT a happy camper. Instead of spending a quiet morning in bed with her fiancee before jumping into wedding preparations, she awoke instead to the rather overwhelming sight and accompanying cacophany of Fanny, Lettie, Martha, AND Mrs. Fairfax clustered around her bed, with no Howl to be found.

"Is she _ever_ going to wake up?" Martha complained, shifting back and forth with no small amount of impatience. Being too young to get married herself, she had delighted in riding the wave of Sophie's engagement instead, loudly vocalizing everything that she would choose in Sophie's place, using the wedding planning as practice for the elaborate engagement she was already planning for her and Michael.

Lettie rolled her eyes. "If you keep talking at _that _volume I'm sure it won't be long," she retorted. _She_ was presently stuck in the awkward position of having to tell the crown prince that she had only been interested in the parts of him that weren't actually him, and that she and his _other_ royal wizard were rather seriously involved instead, so her opinion on weddings was presently quite the opposite of her younger sister's.

"Girls, please!" Fanny exclaimed, grounding their chatter with a glare that left no room for argument. "There are nicer ways to wake someone up than bickering over their bed, so please do try to be considerate of your sister on her big day!"

A large portion of her ire, masked though it was behind her very real irritation at the girls, was directed toward the notably Howl-shaped indentation in the covers beside Sophie, which made the woman in question (who of course had long since been awake and was now only feigning sleep) roll her eyes in exasperation between tightly-closed lids. Honestly, traditions were all well and good, but it _was _Howl's bed; where else did her stepmother expect the man to sleep? In a home with only two (quite occupied) bedrooms, their options were rather limited.

It was Mrs. Fairfax who finally noticed that Sophie was well and truly awake, and she wasted no time in springing forward and seizing the poor girl's hands in a vice-like grip. "Oh Sophie," she gushed, "Congratulations, love!" This, of course, sparked a subsequent outpouring of emotion and excitement as the other women made their moves, pouncing on the poor, utterly bemused Miss Hatter and pulling her out from beneath the comfort of the covers.

Before she knew what was happening, Sophie found herself wrapped in a bathrobe and perched before the (now-sparkling) bathroom mirror, Martha tugging halfheartedly at her hair with a thick brush while Lettie attacked her face with an array of paints and powders.

"Yes, just like that-no, no, you silly girl, the _beige!" _Fanny paced before them all barking orders and bustled here and there, weaving a strange figure eight pattern around the trio while Mrs. Fairfax circled them all like a looming vulture. It was a scene to make even the most stoic of individuals blanch, and Sophie was currently going to great lengths to contain her growing sense of claustrophobia.

What with Howl being one of the two Royal Wizards of Ingary, and Sophie having performed a Very Useful Service to the crown, the wedding was set to be a lavish affair, held in the gardens of the palace itself, attended by at least half the Royal Court, and conducted by the royal bishop. Invitations had been issued, the cake was currently being assembled by a highly trained team of chefs, and a dress of the finest silk now hung waiting in Sophie's bedroom, the veil alone worth Sophie's weight in gold.

Naturally, neither Sophie nor Howl had gotten to have any say whatsoever in the course of affairs.

Howl had been bullied into the royal display by the king, who nearly matched her fiance in stubbornness and outranked him in authority, and her well-meaning but rather domineering family had leapt at the opportunity to "help" plan the wedding, effectively usurping Sophie's role as the actual bride before she could even blink.

So, there she sat, in the bathroom that was far too small for two people let alone five, allowing her sisters to tug at her hair and pluck at her face as she listened to her matriarch of a stepmother serenade them all with her increasingly frenzied instructions. She tried to tell herself that it was all worth it, that she and Howl were finally (after what had been a rather long engagement, as both parties were quite content to take their time and allow things to continue as they were-but that's a story for another time) getting married and that the joy of that singular fact should trump the horror of the actual event, but...

She was miserable. "Her" wedding was not two hours away, yet here she was dreading the event and desperately wishing that her notoriously absent fiance would show his good-for-nothing, far-too-pretty face. "I suppose it would be too much like a fairy tale to wish for a rescue," she murmured to the lace of her dressing gown.

"What was that, Sophie dear?" Mrs. Fairfax asked from the corner.

Sophie jumped in her seat, not realizing that she had been overheard. "I said...I think I need a bit of air," she exclaimed, the excuse leaping out at her. "In fact, give me ten minutes to go stretch my legs, and I will be right back for you to continue your...whatever it is you are doing to me." Deftly, she avoided their protests and grasping hands and wove her way out of the bathroom, not caring that her dressing gown lay discarded atop the bathtub and all she wore was her shift. She all but sprinted as she cleared the doorframe, shaking her head to clear away the fumes from the concentrated amount of cosmetics.

"Sophie?"

She didn't think she had ever been so glad to hear Howl's voice as she was in that moment. They met in the middle of the flower shop, Sophie still in a rather spectacular state of disarray. Her hair was half up, half down, and sticking out in every direction, and one sleeve of her shift was sliding rather spectacularly down her shoulder. "Howl," she gasped, skidding to a stop and seizing his shoulders to right herself. "Where have you been?" She shook her head. "Nevermind that," she declared, cutting off whatever explanation he had prepared. "I can't do this." She pushed a long hank of auburn hair behind her ear, only now aware of her bedraggled appearance.

Gripping her arms at the elbows, he pulled her into his embrace. "Sophie, dear," he murmured into her hair, "If you keep running from your family people will begin to suspect that you don't like them."

She scowled into his chest. "Of course I like them, you insufferable man. I just don't like them right _now._"

That startled a laugh out of him, and he rested his chin on top of her head, keeping a careful watch on the hallway behind her. "I am of a similar opinion about all of this pageantry," he said. "While I won't deny I have a certain...appreciation for lavish finery and appearences " (he paused to allow her time to snort and was not disappointed) "this is notably _not _ in keeping with my particular style."

Sophie had a thought-a wild thought, so far beyond that which the Sophie Hatter of a year-and-a-half ago might have had-and smirked. She drew back and met Howl's bottle-green eyes. "Let's elope," she proposed, her eyes sparkling.

Howl's face split into a wide, devious smirk tinged liberally with the relief that Sophie knew full and well was reflected in her own goofy grin. "Why Sophie," he drawled, "I thought you would never ask! Calcifer," he barked suddenly, turning his gaze skyward to the ceiling, "I know you're floating around somewhere up there. Would you like to be our witness?"

"What now?" The fire demon descended to eye level in a series of lazy spirals. "And who, exactly, will marry you if you don't attend this lavish shindig? Short of members of the royal family and their retainers, ordained officiates are few and far between in this kingdom."

Howl scoffed, dismissing the issue with a flippant twist of his wrist. "We'll just kidnap one along the way."

Sophie rolled her eyes. "We will do no such thing," she chided, lightly smacking his arm.

The Wizard simply laughed. "We shall see." He turned to his bride-to-be, making some elaborate bow and extending his arm. "Now, I believe we were off to get married?"

"Not in my shift!" Sophie exclaimed, brows drawing together in consternation.

Howl simply shook his head and muttered some incoherent comment about female foolishness, then fluttered his fingers carelessly and transformed her simple shift into a lovely ivory gown. "There," he nodded, pleased. "Simple enough for your amazingly misguided utilitarian tastes, yet elegant enough to stand beside my grandeur. Satisfied?"

Laughing, Sophie placed a hand on his forearm, fingers curling gently about his wrist. "Lead on, then, my wizard."

The sound of a slamming door and a sudden cacophony of voices had them exchanging a worried frown.

"And quickly, I believe," Sophie added. "Heaven knows we don't want that lot catching up with us now."

Howl belted out a great laugh. "Your family is going to be furious."

"And the King is going to have your hide," Sophie countered, the smile in her eyes outshining the one on her face.

They shared a long look in which many unsaid thoughts were exchanged, breaking their glance only when Calcifer began a strange series of aerial pirouettes above them. "You two are revolting," he declared, orbiting their heads like some otherworldly halo. "Get a room."

"We _have _a room," Howl snarked, "It is just presently inaccessible to us due to the presence of the spider-killing, cosmetic-bearing hordes of hell. Now, are you coming with us, or are you going to keep floating there like a punctured balloon?"

Calcifer flickered, clearly torn between remaining and reveling in the chaos of the failed wedding plans, and accompanying his friends to their (likely just as disastrous) elopement. Eventually, his face split into a terrifying toothy grin. "Fine, fine, I'll come, I'll come."

Howl beamed. "Excellent". He led Sophie over to the door, turning the knob to the blob of color leading to the Waste. He felt her pin him with a rather acute stare and squeezed her hand reassuringly. "Just wait and see," he told her. "So much suspicion from you, woman!" He wrapped an arm about her waist and propelled her out the door into the fragrant field of flowers beyond.

The beauty of magically-grown flowers, Sophie thought distantly as they strode between row upon row of color, was that they were always blooming. There were bluebells and goldenrod, phlox and hydrangeas, snapdragons and daylilies-plants extending in every direction as far as the eye could see.

"Ah, Wizard Howl, right on time!" The man standing at the center of the field greeted them warmly, grasping Howl's hand and inclining his head toward Sophie. "And Sophie, lovely as ever."

Bemused, Sophie turned to her fiance. "And just _how, _precisely, did Prince Justin come to be standing here at this particular moment in time?"

"You know me well enough to know that I'd never be able to go through with that whole royal catastrophe. It would be a disaster; we'd be on display before the entire kingdom, a pair of royal pets put to show and expected to perform." He gave an exaggerated shudder. "It just so happened that His Highness here owed me-and you, for that matter-a royally large favor, so I decided today was the day to cash in."

"I don't know whether to be appalled or impressed," Sophie confessed, shaking her head. "You are _remarkably _good at slithering out of things," she said, giving him a fond look.

"And you love me for it," he teased."

"Well..." she demurred, laughing as he pouted. "Yes, you silly man, of course I love you."

She turned to the Prince, her expression becoming more business-like and less that of a woman hopelessly in love with the very unique man holding her hand. "Now, I believe you are here-and qualified, as our kingdom's Heir-to marry us?"

Prince Justin straightened, a bit of pompous pageantry filtering into his pleasant expression. "Yes, of course! Let us begin." He cleared his throat and cast a glance around the field. "I do believe you need a witness to make this legally binding, however."

Calcifer burst into a shower of red sparks, raining down to the ground and collecting himself back into his ember-like form. "Which is where I come in, I believe."

Sophie had to give the Prince credit-he barely batted an eyelash at the sudden apperence of a fire demon. Though, she supposed when one had been taken apart, made into two men at once, and technically dead but _not _all at the same time one's perspective of the abnormal tended to shift rather liberally.

Clearing his throat again, the Prince began once more. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today..."

Sophie and Howl exchanged looks of mutual exasperation. "Can we skip ahead a bit, Your Highness?" Sophie prompted.

"Perhaps to vows?" Howl added, more than a touch of irritation tinging his words. "We're on a bit of a time crunch; I doubt Sophie's family will go much longer without discovering our whereabouts."

The words had barely left his mouth when Fannie's shriek cut across the field like a knife through hot butter. "There they are, I see them!"

Sophie whipped around to peer wildly behind them. "Forget the vows," she exclaimed, "They're here! The found us!"

"Soooooophiiiiiieeee!" Martha and Lettie ran ahead of the oncoming pack, covering the distance far more quickly than anyone wearing that many skirts had any right to.

"Justin, say the damn words," Howl exclaimed, panic flaring in his eyes. "Sophie, your family is even more indomitable than you are; I gave them at least ten more minutes before they discovered us."

Justin cut in before Sophie could voice the retort incited by Howl's comment. "If I may," he prompted, and continued on at the couple's simultaneous nods. "Good. Do you, Howl, take Sophie to be your lawfully wedded wife, in sickness and in health, in-"

"I do!" Howl interjected forcefully, having just spotted the King and Wizard Suliman advancing through the wall of waving plants.

Justin sighed. "And do you, Sophie, take Howl to be your lawfully wedded husband?" This time, he didn't even bother adding the additional modifiers.

"I do!" Sophie declared, diligently ignoring her sisters' cries, refusing to let them ruin this moment for her.

"Well, good. You can kiss the bride, then."

In complete defiance to the urgency of the situation, Howl cupped Sophie's chin and pressed his lips to hers in a long, slow kiss that left them both gasping when they finally parted.

"Well, love, we're finally married," Howl breathed, looking deep into her eyes. "Whatever do we do now?" Despite his feigned nonchalance-which was spectacular given the circumstances-his eyes flitted this way and that mapping out and marking as many exits as possible.

Sophie sat for a moment, regaining her breath. "Well, husband," she said, glancing over his shoulder at what could only be described as an avalanche of people rolling in and cocking an eyebrow, "If you want anything resembling a honeymoon I suggest we do what you do best-run!"


End file.
